5 years since I listened to this
and it is still one of my favorites.
The Band really gets to enjoy themselves here.
Didn't they deserved to just rock out
balls to the walls sometimes?
Also laid back and mellow on the ballads
but after Ship of Fools it is all Rock N Roll..
So many uptight critics?
and YES IF IT IS TOO LOUD
YOUR JUST TOO FREAKIN' OLD!
Sugar Magnolia- 2nd encore

You had to be there. So much LSD with so many people. Blazing Sun, Blazing minds,Blazing Music. This truly was The Grateful Dead being “not the best at what they do, they’re the only ones that do what they do.” Thanks, Uncle Bo Bo Graham! RIP. Nothing like a Grateful Dead Concert! I fooled around and fell in love with a beautiful spirit at this show. Thanks Ruby Tuesday Teresa! Those were the days my friends. Sex Drugs Rock and Roll.
We tried to Die Young and Stay Pretty, most of us survived! By the way, Airto Morris and Flora Purim were involved with the drums and space and shrieking as well as the hells angles and their Harley Davidson before Not Fade Away. there was a huge party backstage all day- musician friends of the Dead, hells angels, friends of the band, so the party atmosphere was everywhere!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzGLfZtIs96wMks1Ym5VUkhiSjA />I have the Zevon set. I also wrote this
http://www.glidemagazine.com/168591/intruder-dirt-warren-zevons-legacy-eccentricity-case-warren-rock-roll-hall-fame/

I would really love it if someone had the Zevon Opening Audio and could post it!

Once again Bobby steps all over Jerry's solo in Estimated. I don't expect much from southern California shows,and this is a fine example of why. If you want good '78 material, look for the Spring tour(s). They collectively blow this show out of the water (Normal Illinois 4/24/78 is a great example).

Usually I dont take the time to review a show that I dont like but this is one. It starts off OK, but the screaming and hollering just doesnt sound good to me on repeated listens. Around and Around and NFA gets out of hand quickly with Bob and Donna trying to out SCREAM each other. But, with so many great shows on this site, its kind of pointless to complain about any show. The good ones outweigh the bad ones 99 to 1

If you end up enjoying this, cool, but, honestly:
Set 1 has some truly great moments...but...
Set 2 degenerates into something really bad, starts off well but gradually goes south. It really seems that the band got drunk backstage. Yes, they are pumping out unbridled energy, hooting and hollering by the end (which seems to convince many that the music is great), but the playing becomes just a mess, amateurish. They are certainly pleased with themselves, but very likely upon listening back, they would feel that they'd like to forget about this one, embarrassed by it.
Again, for those that enjoy this show, great. But, honestly the 2nd set is truly progressively bad. There are so very many other better shows. It's worth it to skip this one (or at least sign off a few songs into set 2).

I remember Warren Zevon saying "you bunch of '60s-burned-out-acid-freaks!"

Okay, my first show was a month earlier than this in Springfield, Massachusetts. A fine show for sure, but nothing like... THIS!!! Holy shit, Garcia just is tearing the joint down, everyone's in a good mood and follows his lead. The leads just shred, fine spirited jammin'. The vocals are almost desperate yet gleeful. I wish this had been my first show, you know I woulda lost my shit and joined the tour then and there.

Oh jeez Donna, why you gotta encourage him like that. Ha Aaaaaagh Aagh Ha Ha Come over sweet dream!

Wow this brings me back. First Live concert, what a weekend. I was a freshman and remember hosting a bunch of people down from santa cruz. Incredible buzz the whole day. been looking for this show for a long long time. thanks. Quality or not, this really hits the right place in my being.

True Love is what we got from seeing the Dead live,my heart was full then and today even more so when I listen to these great shows!!!
Man did I love Donna.........
Love will not fade away!
True pure love in the end, is like home grown tomatoes in july,times seven.
Dead Heads Unite again and again!
DAVM>

The show some of you are remembering was in 1974. This show was great and one I'll never forget because I had a pass and spent the show stage right 8-10 ft. from Jerry. At one point a Hell's Angel insisted his chopper be brought onstage and he revved it dring Not Fade Away. I am about to listen to this recording so I can't rate it. The show was 5+ from memory. Aloha

Oh, Warren ... just before making the cover of Rolling Stone. I remember him getting a second bottle, the bizarre dance during Night Time at the Switching Yard, the insults during Warewolves, and getting his mic taken as the band faithfully played on as he ran after the stage manager. Then ... Bonnie Raitt saves his day by coming out with him and making nice with the audience. Whew! After a nice break ... all was as it should be ... what an Amazing day! Never heard the tape, but would love to!

the only Dead show I ever went to with the finest woman I ever lost!
Chris (who knows what by now ne:)Pennington, if you ever should see this, get ahold of me!
Dave (then David) Smith of Wrightwood CA

I agree with the reviews,Not just because this was my first show,the stage was awesome although as one said,it did not hide the wall of sound,it was some years before.There was a buzz in the PA all day.I don't remember Zevon getting booed but people yelling to turn it up.A fellow said during one of the sets,If you think this sounds good, wait till the dead,he was at sound check nite before.He was right! The buzz was found right before the Dead hit stage and the sound was awesome.I've been sooking for this show for 29 years. Thanks so much for posting it. 20 million stars.

This is a good high energy show, one of the best from '78. Bob's hot!
Also see 4-24-78 Normal, IL, and 7-7/8-78 Red Rocks for other terrific '78 shows.

Just from the simple fact that the band themselves were hooting gleefully in the middle of some of the first set tunes, expresses how wow this was even though the song list was generic!
Please bear with me! I have a lot of technical explantions that are important to understand which are not immediately obvious simply from listening to this, but if your patient you'll learn something and have a deeper apreciation of not only this but other shows as well!
Before we get to that let me say some notable things about the openers; I know I am heavily digressing here but hold on briefly: Despite Warren Zevon who was the last of three opening acts (Wa Koo and then Elvin Bishop) being drunk and and getting booed off! In all fairness Grateful Dead gave him a second chance to open in Tempe, Ariz. was it in '82 or 83? Where he redeemed himself, with just good music i.e. no accusing us in the crowd of "being possibly high on Qualudes" and "all 60's rejects" etc. God rest him, it sure shocked him when I saw him in the restroom backstage at an L.A. Sports Arena Pink Floyd show in '87 and told him I was at both this U.C.S.B. Grateful Dead show when I was a freshman in college, (actually I transferred to U.C.S.B. later as a junior), as well the Tempe show (Needless to say Bonnie Raitt was standing on the side of the stage and I hadn't yet back then seen her play live so I was eagerly hope she would come out but not with this fiasco with Zevon)!
Elvin Bishop on the other hand was in top form as reinforced very coolly by Jerry Garcia jioning him aalong the guitarist from this very interesting opening band "Wa-Koo"! What ever happened to them? Of course Elvin Bishop, was "Struttin' his stuff ya'll". But then he "Fooled around and fell in Love"!
Now back to the main event: If any of you attended the Greek in 87' where they were doin' the motorcycle thing! Well, this is were it was derived from! On that board tape one can clearly hear Mickey tell the biker not to rev. it up but to just let it idle unlike here; where this guy with the motorcycle obviously had a different approach!
For example, not only with the bike but with his monkey vocalizations too which he apparently couldn't hear himself with no monitor not realizing (and asking eventually though the mic, "Is this fuckin' thing workin'?") that it is going out over the P.A. before hand during the improvisational jam with Garcia doodlin' through his envelope filter (on by the way, the "wolf" Doug Irwin guitar i.e. the one in the movie since the Travis Bean had gotten stolen some time late the year before); (Wier unusually had a Ibanez double neck, and Lesh on the 10 button bass (Europe '72) but neither of them were in this jam until the motorcyle); while most interesting and rare Mickey Hart set some spooky Carribean rythmns using genuine steal drums! Not to mention some weird moaning and hollowing from Donna(? not visible or who knows maybe that was Bonnie Raitt or some other chick with the biker, in any case it made for a unique jam into the motorcycle charged Not Fade Away)!
Later I asked Mickey on his birthday in '83 Sun. 9-11 in Sante Fe, N.M. at the hotel about this. (How I came to be at the hotel : as a result of Southwest Airlines mistakenly sending my bags on to Dallas instead of Albuquerque when I was coming from L.A. and they also misplaced them on the way back too!) Anyway, they told me to go get them at the hotel where the band was staying at! So I asked him what ever became of the steel drums to which he replied that (being a bit tipsy, given that Weir had to help him walk on his birthday), "Oh, they are too delicate to take on tour". Yet Lo, and behold he brought them back out shortly thereafter at a few shows I saw, albeit only very briefly. (Like he said very delicate!
I once had two percussionists for roommates in graduate school who played steel drums; you see if they get ever so slightly bent they go out of tune! And one can't easily retune them as one can with a stringed instrument. Instead it takes a lot of careful beating of the metal into just the correct size of the bowl shapes which form each note)! After this he opted instead from then on, to derive that and other sounds he fancied at any given show from the electronicly synthesized drums which obviously by that time had finally achieved a more reasonable state technological funtionality (at reasonable prize of course)!
Unlike when this U.C.S.B. concert occurred, when obviously the state of the art for synthesized musical sounds beyond that of single note keyboards i.e. one couldn't in those days play a chord though with a synthesizer (with the exception that is, of Keith Emerson). Such that at the previous year's opening show Sat. 2-26 where they debuted "Estimated Prophet" in San Bernardino they had to plug Garcia into (on, by the way, the white Travis Bean, which had an aluminum neck, which also by the way, the only other famous guitarist to use one of these was in that same year '77, namely Greg Lake, since I saw E.L.P. play that year as well), so that Jerry could get the proper envelope filter sound, a Moog that Godchaux was, needless to say, very reluctant to play since he only like piano! (Listen to for example, the tape of Dallas in '77 where Keith very breifly plays a synthesizer on the beginning of "Playin' in the Band" and then suddenly he just stops playing keyboard all together at least, if I recall correctly, until they do another tune); (unlike Brent Mydland of course)!
Until later of course as you well know, when they finally figured out how to achieve this for Garcia, not only for "Estimated Prophet"'s envelope filter sound independently, (and others tunes again as you well know such as "Fire On The Mountain" and so on), without having to plug him into a keyboard! But additionally also, for his guitar synthsizer sounds in the '90s etc. and Weir, and Lesh, and as I already said the drummers too!
This is as opposed to, a comment in an interview in '79 in B.A.M.(Bay Area Music) magazine with Billy K. where he made reference to this, saying something to the effect of that he felt (at that time which is the key point here) that synthesized percussion was not satisfactory (as of yet)! And as I implied above, even Jerry's envelope filter in '78 was still a relatively new gadget being used first both the day before, as well as for "Samson& Delilah" and "Dancin' in the Streets" (disco arrangement) the next day at my first show when they opened up '76 for the Who at Oakland Stadium on Sat.-Sun. Oct. 9-10!
Despite Bob apologizing for being "Horribly out of tune" after the openers "Bertha"->"Good Lovin'"; this show really cooks!
Augy
San Diego

With spring/summer of '78, Bertha started getting back to it's old groove, and this is a good one. Not so with the Brown-eyed Women here, which is laden with heavy drums. Looks Like Rain is nice, and Jack Straw and Samson cook. The second set is fast paced and more experimental then most of '77, with mixed results. A great Estimated, interesting Not Fade Aways. The space gets tedious (the motorcycle is pretty funny), the Going Down the Road is marred by some ugly screaming by Bob and Donna. The last three rockers take us out on a high note.

I was at this show.
It was a very hot Fourth of July at UC Santa Barbara that day. The temperature was blazing on the stadium floor. There were some high thin clouds & not a wisp of wind. People were literally hanging from the trees outside the venue.
We had to negotiate the gauntlet of CHPÂs in their jack boots & Santa Barbara County Mounties to get in the place.
If I recall Bonnie Raitt was Warren Zevon's guest on Werewolves of London. He was pretty drunk and made some rude remarks about the crowd being burn-outs and Weir's girlfriend or something like that.
Jerry Garcia and WZ, Bonnie Raitt as well as some others did a tune or two between acts.
It had been advertised as a festival show and the atmosphere was rather festive being independence day and all, and the band seemed like they were into it.
Looks Like Rain was very nice, Jerry's riffs felt like water pouring over a stone. Equally groovy was the Estimated/Eyes seque and GDTRFB was energetic. Donna Jean struggled as she often did with the live mix. Sugar Magnolia/Sunshine Daydream had us dancing in the parking lot as we left.
Quite a memorable show overall.

Yes. It was a good show. Remember the great decorative facade across the front of the wall of sound? Anyone remember the opening act? It was Elvin Bishop. Nice show. The one thing I remember Warren Zevon saying to the crowd was something like "Hey, what's wrong with you guys out there? You're a bunch of acid casualties!"
I got a migraine headache from being in the sun all day, and had to stay at a motel on the way back to Newport. It was worth it. This was my last show until 1987 at Oakland to see Dylan and the Dead. This show sounds great as I write this. Just like I remember it. Even my wife liked it!

I attended ucsb with a bunch of budies from high school. We were all died in the wool dead heads by the 11th grade. This concert was highly anticipated, we were completey "stocked" and stoked. Unfortunately, going through the entry gate, one of my friends got popped for acid, and spent 3/4ths of the show in the Goleta jail! somehow, the rest of us managed to put his predicament out of our heads for the duration of the show (which was pretty great) and then went looking for him in the Hell's Angel area after the show. Almost got our asses kicked, but made it out alive, and ended up coming down with beer and chicken flautas at Serranito's after the gig....a truely great day to be a local!

Jack Straw is a nice foreshadow of set two. Garcia's first solo, all three runs are chords. The second solo is also big. And Donna has a nice moment.
The transition from Estimated is a little rough, but Eyes begins at a nice, snappy tempo. At 5:20 Garcia really takes off. He begins a wonderful, long trilling of chords after the six minute mark. The tune dissolves around 7:40 into a beautiful airyness, then percolates nicely for several minutes atop a bed of piano-Weir-drums.
At 3:55 in Space, the Motorcyle sonata begins...
A good getting out of the ya-yas in Not Fade, Weir and Garcia trilling chords passionately. Alas, Donna's contribution here is a little hard to take. There is a very brief Nobody's Fault But Mine instrumental at 5:40.
Garcia's first solo in GDTRFB is fun; the second run is all chords. Second solo starts snappy and fluent; second run here is more great chord work, a bow to Chuck.
After all this, still had energy for Around, and an energetic second encore Magnolia (Donna is far better here). Them's were the days..."Thank you very much and have a long, hot summer!" (Phil)
(one of the wackiest Garcia solos on Around you'll ever hear. First run, brillant. Second, drops out, and scrambles to get back in. Third, astonishing entry. Fourth, wacky. Crazy sound, indeed....). Grateful G-- D--- dead!

sorry to say the last person who said that maria muldaur sounded great on this particular day..lost 4 years in his life. i was the co-promoter of all the shows at ucsb from 1970 to 1978 and maria muldaur appeared a another day in the sun with the grateful dead in 1974 co-promoted with pacific presentations. the 1978 show was co-presented with bill graham and featured the dead, warren zevon, and an opener. both shows were fabulous...the 1974 show featured the wall of sound p.a. with all the pa behind the band. maria could not figure out how to sing into the double mike set-up. rumor had it she sampled some of the on-stage coolaid.

I think about this concert now and again, special day, great girlfriend, excellent sounds, and drunken Zevon getting booed off the stage for bad mouthing the crowd...What a day cruising down to Goleta from SLO...

I was buzzed as the day was long. My freind threw a frisbee on the stage from mid crowd. Warren Zevon was too drunk to go on. One of my top 3 favorite Dead Shows of over 50 attended. That Harley was used to start NOT FADE AWAY with a Hells Angel at the throttle. Kinda heady after Altamont and all.

...and still the best rock concert I have ever seen. A week before finals (nice timing, guys!), and nobody I knew studied at ALL that weekend. Non-Deadheads kept saying after the show "I didn't know Garcia could play guitar like that." The energy level was unbelievable. I never saw them come close to sustaining that level of intensity for an entire concert ever again. I listen to this show again, and I am there. Hard to say whether someone who wasn't there can really feel the vibe or not. Wish that someone had sneaked a movie camera in. Regardless, the Estimated/Eyes is among their best, with Eyes at a very fast clip with an amazing amazing amazing Jerry solo, and everything post-drums is simply explosive. Set a standard that, at least for me, they never equalled. Wonderful to be able to shitcan my 99th generation tape for this gem. One million stars,and I am not under the influence of anything right now.

Interesting review scarylarry. Thanks for the kind notes.
peace brotherman

I was amazed when the Hell's Angels fired up a candy apple red Harley-Davidson on stage and held a mic. to the pipes, Blue me away. You could see the Channel Islands, what a day band was hot and so was Maria Muldaur.Glad I found this show. Thanks Archive and the Dead, great sound.

This was my first bootleg as we called them then on memorex tape in 1981 as a junior in high school. I cherished this and listened to this first set back and forth - had an excellent audience copy from a classmate whose brother went to UCSB.
This is a very hot show and alot of energy for an uneven year. Arguably the best est>eyes of the year, wild chopper intro to NFA and nobody's jam, Bobby leading the second verse, ripping jack straw and hot bertha>good lovin. If only we had a better copy, listen to the crowd going batshit there is not doubt this was a heavy show to go to.

Ah, the show from the night I was born. In some strange way, it really means something to me that they played Eyes of the World that night...
Im grateful...

This particular recording is inferior to my tape, but I can attest that the Estimated>Eyes is well worth the download. The post Eyes jam is especially inspiring. Jerry was dialed in for this show.